Saturday, March 14, 2009

Hello, Mohammed Zaim Zulfadhlie Said is the name given by my parents when i was born.5th of May was the date.

I am their 3rd child out of four.

My father is a government servant while my mother works in a private company.I came from a humble town of Kota Kinabalu which used to be known as Jesselton during the English Era and also Api-api when Japan occupied the territory.I grew up there and lived there most of my life until I finished high school (proud Sabah Collegian) and had to enter International Islamic University Malaysia which is situated in the Malaysian Capital of Kuala Lumpur to further my studies.

I'm majoring in Bachelor of Computer Science under the Kulliyyah of Information and Communication Technology of IIUM.

I think this is the right field for me since I have always been interested in technology and there is no better place than IIUM to obtain my degree. The international environment here makes me love this place more. But no matter how much I love studying here, I can’t run from the fact that there will always be incompetent lecturers working in any educational institution. It’s not that they don’t master their subject well; most of them just don’t know how to project their thoughts or ideas so that the students will be able to fully understand their teachings. There may be other obstacle that I have faced as a student here but this is one of the things that I just have to contend with, at least until the university decides to improve their teaching staff.

Leadership has constantly been my key strength when faced by a problem. Taking control of things during duress never really is the problem. Only when it comes to scheduling that I may face a bit of a headache. But I’m still working on it now so I can improve myself as a person.Most of my achievements didn’t come from Computer Science but rather from the co-curriculum activities that I’ve been participated since I’ve joined IIUM, more precisely in sports.I hope to see myself as a successful person in any field of Information Technology. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the Security, Networking, Programming, Artificial Intelligence or any related IT fields. I just want to succeed so in later years, i can look back without regrets. I want to obtain my degree first then continue to masters before going into the industry. That way, I will have enough knowledge and be more confident in stepping into the “real world”. I know it is unorthodox to pursue my masters before getting any experience in the industry, but in my opinion, this is the way to go as i go by the principle of "learning before leaping".

Based on all the knowledge that I've gathered from the PMIT class, there is one very useful tip that people in general can benefit from which is “Triple Constraints of Project Management”.

Even though I’ve learnt it from the early part of the class, the importance of the Triple Constraints can’t be overlooked. Scope, Time and Cost, these three things will determine whether a project is a successful one or a failure. This is because satisfying all these three constraint will make any project a successful one. Every one of these constraints are actually interconnected where if one does not satisfy for example the cost, the time will be affected, thus making life harder for any project manager.

Therefore, to be a good project manager, one must look carefully into the Triple Constraints and not to belittle the influence it has on a project.

To add to the Triple Constraints that I mentioned earlier, here are the general advice that I’ve learnt during the PMIT class on managing Project Team:• Be patient and kind with your team.• Fix the problem instead of blaming people. • Establish regular, effective meetings.• Allow time for teams to go through the basic team-building stages. • Limit the size of work teams to three to seven members.• Plan some social activities to help project team members and other stakeholders get to know each other better. • Stress team identity.• Nurture team members and encourage them to help each other.• Take additional actions to work with virtual team members.

And here are some of the benefits that I have gotten from the PMIT class:• I have acquired knowledge and skills that are essential in becoming a good project manager.• My understanding of the importance of good relationship with other team members in a project is better now.• I’m much more confident in talking in front of an audience.• I’m not afraid to take on the challenges of becoming a real project manager some day.

I like it in the sense that the course teaches me how to handle a project if I was to be given one. It can be a helpful guideline for me in the future. I learned a lot from this course and the fact that it made us do many presentations add more fun into the course. These presentations had help me with my communication skills and also developed my self confidence. To add to the list of what I like best about this course is that this course has been a two-way learning from the start. The lecturer allows me and the rest of the students to express our views and she will accept it during teachings.

What do you dislike most about the course?

What I dislike about this course is that contrary during lectures, the examination or tests have been strictly according to the book. We can’t express our own ideas even if it’s actually usable or rational. We can’t even use our own words to explain things when needed and that is very frustrating for me because I’ve never been the sort of student who memorizes word for word from the book. When I understand things, I like to interpret it with my own words because it shows that I do understand things rather than just memorize it.

What are your proposed suggestions to improve the course delivery and content?

In my opinion, more discussions are likely the best way to improve the course delivery and content. Also maybe we can add practical assignments so that students can really feel what it is like to be in a project.